Miami-Dade County received 31 achievement awards this year from the National Association of Counties (NACo). The 2012 Achievement Awards recognize innovative County government programs that better serve residents and achieve greater cost efficiency.

"I'm proud that Miami-Dade County has been recognized by the National Association of Counties for its achievements," said Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez. "Our employees have earned these recognitions through their hard work and innovation - and it's particularly impressive that they've done so across such a broad spectrum of public service disciplines."

The Miami-Dade Police Department received eight awards for programs in several areas including the Crime Analysis, RapidID and Warrants on-line systems. The RapidID program expedites the positive identification process of a subject. With this program an officer is now able to fingerprint a subject in the field, via a portable fingerprint scanner to determine their identity and criminal history. The Warrants Online System provides open warrants information to the Miami-Dade County community. This information is linked with a mug shot photograph if the subject has been previously booked in Miami-Dade County.

The Information Technology Department received five awards including the GIS Oblique Imagery Implementation, and the GIS Voter Viewer Programs, an application deployed locally over the County's intranet that allows all elections staff to view map-based voter locations, streets, addresses, electoral boundaries and other data.

The departments that received three awards included: Corrections and Rehabilitation; Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces; Public Works and Waste Management; and Regulatory and Economic Resources.

The Seaport Department and the Community Information and Outreach Department (CIAO) each received two awards. CIAO's Tax Visualizer allows Miami-Dade County property owners to go online, enter their folio number or address, and the application will display a breakdown of how their property taxes are distributed, while CIAO's Service Trends Online Program is an online reporting application designed to enhance both internal performance-based management and public value by tracking information on citizen requests for service reported to the 3-1-1 Answer Center.

The Clerk of Courts and Cultural Affairs Department each received an achievement award.